Become Spatial DBA

[CuteDBA]

Hi all,

Congrats for the new lOOk for the ArcGIS Forums, finally looked familiar... wish you all the best...

I am an Oracle DBA and I want to be Spatial DBA for ESRI products, can anyone tell me what should be the roadmap, what should I know besides how to query sdemon from the command prompt?

Kindly advice,
Regards,
C.

[RobertWest]

A good start would be to read/absorb content in the Help under

Administrator Library->Administering geodatabases licensed through ArcGIS Server Enterprise

What is ArcSDE?
A quick tour of administering ArcSDE geodatabases
Essential ArcSDE geodatabase vocabulary
Architecture of a geodatabase
Geodatabases in Oracle

Then, in the Professional Library, there's quite a bit of geodatabase content in the Data Management section. 
Professional Library->Data Management->Managing geodatabases

There's a lot to know. 

Robert

[CuteDBA]

Thank you Robert,

That's an excellent guide.

I will follow the guide.. and I am familiarizing myself with the SDE command lines ...

I was wondering, do I have to understand and learn how to edit maps and stuff that GIS analysts do ... because at the end I am a database administrator and one database I administer is GIS data...

Do ArcGIS Desktop stuff enough to learn GIS and then Administer GIS Databases?

C.

[RobertWest]

I don't know that you need to know the details of the day to day analyst work.  However, you probably need to develop a good understanding of how versioning works in terms of what's happening in the database.    Related to that is the topic of geodatabase replication.  You probably will want to know how that works.  Again, not necessarily from an end user perspective, but from a dba perspective on how it works in the database.   Most dba's also like to know how an upgrade works (eg: upgrading from 9.3 to 10).  

One other thing I could have mentioned in the first post is where the "system table schemas" are documented. The main reference for Oracle gdb tables is available via a link in the Help.  (System tables of a geodatabase stored in Oracle). Also, if you look in the <arcgis desktop install location>\Desktop10.0\Documentation, you will find a number of PDF files that have table schemas in them for specific things like raster, geometric networks and so on.  The Oracle ones start with an "o".

osptl_raster_tables.pdf
O_binary_fc_tables.pdf
O_geomnetworks.pdf
O_LR_raster_tables.pdf
o_parcelfab_tables.pdf
o_rasterds_st.pdf
o_schematic_tables.pdf
O_sptl_fc_tables.pdf
O_stg_fc_tables.pdf

These are just references for dba's.

Robert

[DerekLaw]

Hi C,

FYI, this ESRI learning pathway covers using and connecting to the multiuser geodatabase, as well as techniques and strategies needed to install ArcSDE technology, design the multiuser geodatabase, load data, and manage a multiuser environment.

Geodatabase Management Learning Pathway
http://training.esri.com/gateway/index.cfm?fa=pubPaths.getPathDetail&pathID=5&

Hope this helps